The present invention relates to a filter construction, and more particularly, to a filter construction for use primarily in cleaning and polishing potable water, although it may be used for filtering other fluids, such as milk or the like.
In the past, it has been known that the absorptive capacity of the carbon material in prior filter devices has been only partially utilized when such filter devices have failed. It has also been known in filter devices which utilize adsorptive material, such as carbon granules, that turbidity removal has been known to cause the elimination of the surface area of the carbon granules which contribute to their adsorptive capacity. Elimination of this effective surface is primarily the result of coating and eventually results in bridging and channeling through the carbon granules, and ultimately in prohibitive pressure drops with complete non-performance of the filtering device.
Therefore, it has become desirable to design and manufacture a filter device in which turbidity removal will prevent a premature failure of the device prior to a substantial usage of the adsorptive capacity of the carbon material contained therein while still yielding a filtrate of the highest possible quality. More particularly, the filter device must be constructed so as to have an extremely large filtration area while being relatively small and compact in overall size. Still further, the filtration area must be large enough so as to enable the use of filter materials which have a pore size capable of yielding the high grade effluent desired without resulting in prohibitive pressure drops.